The owner of trendy restaurants in Scottsdale, Wisconsin and Manhattan plans to carve an upscale restaurant out of the vacant Hanny's building in downtown Phoenix.

Karl Kopp, owner of the popular AZ88 in Scottsdale, is trading his 12,000-square-foot parcel at 424 N. Central Ave. to the city in return for the 7,000-square-foot Hanny's building at the southwest corner of Second and Adams streets. The Hanny's building has been vacant for many years, and Phoenix wants Kopp's property on Central for part of the future campus of Arizona State University.

City records show an agreement, approved in late September, which settles a condemnation case started by the city to acquire property for the ASU campus. The agreement requires Kopp's company -- 424 N. Central Ave. LLC -- to rehabilitate the Hanny's building based on the city's Historic Preservation Office requirements.

Kopp, who also owns Elsa's on the Park in Milwaukee and Bar 89 in Manhattan, has been interested in opening a downtown Phoenix restaurant for years. He was traveling in Europe this week visiting restaurants for ideas and could not be reached for comment.

"He goes all over the world looking for cool ideas," said Grady Gammage Jr., Kopp's attorney.

Gammage, who inspected the Hanny's building with Kopp, credited Mayor Phil Gordon with the idea of the property trade.

The Hanny's building was the headquarters for a clothing company, which at one time also had outlets in several shopping malls.

The building, considered prime real estate because it is in the middle of downtown, has a full basement, a two-story first floor with a mezzanine and an outdoor roof patio.

"Karl is thinking a of a restaurant similar to all his others, which tend to be bar/restaurants with great food but not with three-course-meal kind of food," Gammage said. "Just great bar food.

"And that will be a terrific location right there by the hotels and Civic Plaza and the ballpark. In some ways, that is a better location than the one on Central.

"This is exactly the kind of thing, in an invigorated downtown Phoenix, that could really be a place where a lot of people want to go," he said.

Gammage said Kopp's AZ88 restaurant next to the Scottsdale Civic Center has been popular since it opened in 1988.

"He updates the decor all the time," Gammage said. "He's constantly changing stuff, which gets people in all the time to look at it. And the patio at AZ88 is one of the neatest patios you'll ever see."

Kopp's proposal to convert the vacant clothing store into an upscale restaurant "is fantastic," Phoenix Councilman Tom Simplot said.

"We need quality nightlife in downtown Phoenix, and a restaurant by the owner of AZ88 will be a draw," Simplot said. "Look what it did for the Scottsdale Civic Center. And they have great burgers."

Simplot added that about two years ago, the Hanny's building was part of a proposal by a developer who envisioned a CVS drugstore on the block.

The concept integrated the old building into the new design, with residential condominiums on upper floors, but the proposal never got off the drawing board, he said.

Others familiar with the developer's original proposal, however, say the drugstore chain remains interested in downtown Phoenix and plans to continue its search for a site.



Author: Mike Padgett
Source: The Business Journal